A Little Snow Will Do You Good

On Monday, here in London, the city came to a halt. As a former Chicagoan, I found it quite amusing that six inches of snow were all it took to shut down a world class city, but, there it was.

Since my university closed, and the seminar I was supposed to attend was cancelled, I found myself with an unexpectedly free day. Now, as any survivor of graduate school knows, there's no such thing as a "snow day" when you are a Masters' student. Reading waits for no man. So I knew I should have spent my free day doing work, but instead, I decided to take a walk around the city. After all, I reasoned, what's the point of living in London, if I can't spend my snow day outside, enjoying the snow?

The streets outside were uncharacteristically hushed. Roads normally filled with traffic were empty. Shops and banks and restaurants were closed. People came into work only to be sent home.

For one day, many Londoners were neither producers nor consumers.

So what did we do? We, adults and children alike, threw snowballs. We took pictures of the snowy streets. We stomped in the snow. And we built lots and lots of snowmen.

As the week has worn on, the BBC has estimated that the cost of our semi-national snow day at over one billion pounds.

That's a lot of money lost. But as with any snow cloud, I think there is a silver-lining. And that is that on Monday, the many Londoners who played in the snow remembered once again, that the best things in life?

Are free.